Harmonised Unemployment Rates (HURs), OECD - Updated: November 2017

OECD unemployment rate stable at 5.7% in September 2017

13/11/2017 - The OECD unemployment rate was stable at 5.7% in September 2017. Across the OECD area, 35.7 million people were unemployed, 3.0 million more than in April 2008.

Within the euro area, the unemployment rate decreased by 0.1 percentage point, to 8.9% in September, with the largest declines observed in Latvia (down 0.3 percentage point, to 7.9%), Belgium (down 0.2 percentage point, to 7.1%), Portugal (down 0.2 percentage point, to 8.6%), and the Slovak Republic (down 0.2 percentage point, to 7.2%).

The unemployment rate also decreased in the United States (by 0.2 percentage point, to 4.2%) and Korea (by 0.1 percentage point, to 3.7%) but was stable in Canada (at 6.2%), Japan (at 2.8%) and Mexico (at 3.3%). More recent data for October show that the unemployment rate continued to fall in the United States (by 0.1 percentage point, to 4.1%, its lowest level since December 2000) but increased (by 0.1 percentage point, to 6.3%) in Canada.

Contacts: for further information, journalists are invited to contact the OECD's Media Relations Division on (33) 1 45 24 97 00 or news.contact@oecd.org; others should contact the Statistics Directorate on stat.contact@oecd.org.